Category: Szymborska

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems… Possibilities I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I…

I suppose, as a poet, amongst my fears can be counted the deep-seated uneasiness that one day it will be revealed that I consecrated my life to an imbecility (to something intrinsically unnecessary and superfluous – and thereby unintentionally cruel). In an intriguing essay called “On Fear”, Mary Ruefle touch upon a problem I have been…

She (Szymborska) is preoccupied … throughout her work, with the relationship between poetry and the daily life that surrounds it, feeds it, and at times altogether ignores it. – Clare Cavanagh Yesterday I got this challenging question regarding Szymborska: “How does the writing–or reading, affect you?” I’m still pondering about it. Sometimes art hits you somewhere behind…